School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences
Social Sciences programs
The Social Sciences team brings together a distinctive combination of research, theory and practice to make sense of and respond to critical challenges of our time. Our academic experts teach across the areas of sociology, anthropology, linguistics, and human services. They engage students in social research that informs social policy, planning and service delivery, the media and politics.
- Students have the opportunity to contribute to problem-solving in the Bachelor of Social Science.
- At post-graduate levels, students can advance their academic and applied research skills through the Master of Social Change and Development or the Graduate Certificate in Social Change and Development.
Contact us
For more information about these programs please contact our program convenors.
Dr Vanessa Bowden
Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci
Program Convenor - Bachelor of Social Science
- vanessa.bowden@newcastle.edu.au
- 0249686726
Dr Julia Coffey
Associate Professor
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci
Deputy Program Convenor - Bachelor of Social Science
- julia.coffey@newcastle.edu.au
- 0243484081
Dr Randi Irwin
Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci
Program Convenor - Master of Social Change and Development and the Graduate Certificate in Social Change and Development
- randi.irwin@newcastle.edu.au
- 0249217339
Dr Hedda Askland
Associate Professor
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci
Anthropology
Expertise: social anthropology; community and identity; migration and displacement; place and place attachment; coal, energy, resources and extraction; social and environmental impact (incl. SIA).
- hedda.askland@newcastle.edu.au
- 0249217067
Dr Vanessa Bowden
Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci
Sociology
Expertise: climate change; environmental sociology; politics; reflexive modernisation; risk society; social theory
- vanessa.bowden@newcastle.edu.au
- 0249686726
Associate Professor Caragh Brosnan
Associate Professor
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci
Sociology
Expertise: health and illness; medicine; complementary medicine; bioscience; professions; professional knowledge; professional identity; higher education; medical education
- caragh.brosnan@newcastle.edu.au
- 0249216348
Dr Julia Coffey
Associate Professor
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci
Sociology
Expertise: sociology of health; youth studies; sociology of gender; sociology of the body; identity
- julia.coffey@newcastle.edu.au
- 0243484081
Dr Julia Cook
Senior Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci
Sociology
Expertise: futurity; housing; place; residential mobility; sociology of time; young adulthood; youth
- julia.cook@newcastle.edu.au
- 0240553018
Dr Jonathan Curtis
Associate Lecturer/Casual Academic
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci
Sociology
Expertise: digital technology and its commercial application; sociology of backcountry skiing and snowboarding
Associate Professor Daniela Heil
Associate Professor
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci
Anthropology
Expertise: social and cultural anthropology; medical anthropology; political economy of health; Indigenous health and wellbeing; body, personhood and self; surrogacy
- daniela.heil@newcastle.edu.au
- 0249216790
Dr S. A. Hamed Hosseini
Senior Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci
Sociology
Expertise: post-capitalist alternative futures; quantitative and mixed methods; social movements including youth movements; applied social and community informatics; sociology of information technologies and big data analytics; social psychology; social wellbeing and well-living; ethnic minorities and discrimination
- hamed.hosseini@newcastle.edu.au
- 0249215878
Dr Randi Irwin
Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci
Anthropology
Expertise: energy; resource extraction; land rights; sovereignty; colonial and settler state infrastructure
- randi.irwin@newcastle.edu.au
- 0249217339
Associate Professor Kiwako Ito
Associate Professor
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci
Linguistics
Expertise: eye tracking for studying language processing; language acquisition; psycholinguistics; speech signal processing
- kiwako.ito@newcastle.edu.au
- 0249216109
Dr Chris Krogh
Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci
Human Services
Expertise: care-full human services practice; document research; ecological paradigm; evaluation; Gosford CBD reinvigoration
- chris.krogh@newcastle.edu.au
- 0249854497
Dr Catriona Malau
Senior Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci
Linguistics
Expertise: Language description and documentation; Oceanic languages of the Pacific, focussing on Vanuatu
- catriona.malau@newcastle.edu.au
- 0249216687
Dr Kathleen McPhillips
Senior Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci
Sociology
Expertise: religion and gender; sexual violence and trauma; sociology of child abuse; sociology of institutions; psychoanalysis and culture; sociology of mental health; politics of post-secularism and religion; feminist theory
Dr Jess Negro
Associate Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci
anthropology
Expertise: ethnography; social anthropology; participant observationq; ualitative ethnography; sociology of the anthropocene
Professor Bill Palmer
Professor
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci
Linguistics
Expertise: spatial language and spatial cognition; Indigenous languages of Australia, the Pacific and New Guinea; language typology; syntax; phonology
- bill.palmer@newcastle.edu.au
- 0249215157
Ms Louise Rak
Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci
Human Services
Expertise: community development; community services; equity in higher education; youth violence; cultural cohesion
- louise.rak@newcastle.edu.au
- 0240339231
Professor Kate Senior
Professor
Institute for Regional Futures
Anthropology
Expertise: public health and health services; Australian Aboriginal communities; health and wellbeing of Indigenous adolescents
- kate.senior@newcastle.edu.au
- 0249217078
Dr Mitchell Taylor
Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci
Sociology
Expertise: social theory; history and philosophy of social thought; functional differentiation and the logic of comparative functionalism
Associate Professor Steven Threadgold
Associate Professor
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci
Sociology
Expertise: youth sociology; class and inequality; youth transitions; youth culture; popular culture; Pierre Bourdieu; reflexivity and youth subjectivity; moral panic; consumer culture; risk and risk society
- steven.threadgold@newcastle.edu.au
- 0249215919
The University of Newcastle acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands within our footprint areas: Awabakal, Darkinjung, Biripai, Worimi, Wonnarua, and Eora Nations. We also pay respect to the wisdom of our Elders past and present.